1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of methods for transferring highly compressed gas from a reactor to a storage tank accompanied by condensation of the gas.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In known and conventional practice, a reactor is evacuated by expanding the gas first to a low pressure, generally the evacuation pressure, and then compressing the gas to the storage pressure, cooling the gas and finally, liquefying the gas. The gas is thus stored in the liquid state. Since the gas is only cooled after the compression step in the aforesaid procedure, the heat exchangers required for cooling the gas only have to be designed for the low storage pressure, and not for the higher pressure in the reactor. In known and conventional methods of this sort, the compressor required for evacuating the reactor and for filling the storage tank is likewise designed for the constant storage pressure.
Depending on the gas used and on its temperature and pressure in the reactor, this method can be improved in a known manner by the installation of an expansion turbine with a compressor running on the same axle. But this possibility exists only within a certain limited range of thermodynamic variables of state.